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A new year is rising in space.
The seven Expedition sixty eight crew members celebrated the arrival of 2023 on the International Space Station in vacation style, together with Santa hats, streamers and an tailored Orthodox Christmas tree forward of the Russian celebration Jan. 6.
"Just like again home, we have a custom right here to place up a New Year tree and decorate the inside of the space station to celebrate the New Year. Today, we will present you how to do it under zero-gravity conditions," Russian cosmonaut
Sergey Prokopyev said in a video message from Roscosmos(opens in new tab) on Thursday (Dec. 29), with translation provided by state media supplier TASS(opens in new tab).
Beside Prokopyev, Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Anna Kikina put up tiny ornaments and carried out somersaults, all beneath a coloured banner festooned with the phrases "New Year" in Cyrillic. Holiday cheer additionally unfold to the U.S. side of the orbiting complex.
In a NASA video uploaded final week, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata pledged to take a picture of the primary orbital dawn of 2023 in a single of many close by modules within the ISS Kibo module, additionally provided by Japan.
The U.S. astronauts have been quiet on social media throughout the vacation season, however within the meantime, NASA uploaded a few photos on Flickr(opens in new tab) of the crew floating across the space station with Santa hats, stockings and vacation sweaters.
It will be a busy early 2023 for the Expedition sixty eight crew after Russia determines what to do with a Soyuz spacecraft that suddenly began leaking coolant on Dec. 15. There is no immediate hazard to the space station crew, however it's unclear whether or not the Soyuz, called MS-22, can bear Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio again to Earth as planned.
Russia has pledged its "final decision" in January on whether or not to ship up a rescue Soyuz (which would arrive no sooner than February) or to bring the three affected crew members home in Soyuz MS-22, in accordance to reports.
NASA has additionally reached out to SpaceX to see whether or not it would be possible to bring the trio home in a Crew Dragon spacecraft, if no different backup is available. Dragon Endeavour is docked to the space station proper now, however is nominally full as it's scheduled to bring Mann, Cassada, Wakata and Kikina again to Earth.
The trigger of the Soyuz leak has not but been determined, however follow-up scans of the spacecraft revealed a gap within the radiator that might be from a micrometeoroid, or a piece of space particles too small to track. The three Soyuz MS-22 crew members might be with out a lifeboat within the meantime, in case of emergency on the ISS.
